1a: Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial
skeleton (bones of the head and trunk) with variable involvement of other
joints. AS is a complex poorly understood disease, epidemiological studies are
limited by low numbers of cases, and lack of controls. We aim to utilise a casecontrol
methodology to comprehensively investigate the epidemiology of AS.
Two specific objectives will be investigated:
a) Investigating the determinants of AS;
b) Investigating the impacts of the disease e.g. mental health and wellbeing,
socioeconomic status etc.
1b: The UK Biobank provides us with a unique opportunity to improve our
understanding of a complex chronic condition, which significantly impacts on
quality of life. Our proposed research will provide the most comprehensive overview of AS to date in a UK population. A greater understanding of this
condition is important for improving diagnosis, treatment regimens and public
health interventions.
1c: We will utilise standard case-control epidemiological techniques to
investigate AS within the UK Biobank. We will compare the individuals
reporting a diagnosis of AS (cases) to those not reporting AS (controls). Our
research will compare the characteristic features of cases and controls. We will
be able to determine if specific factors increase an individual’s risk of reporting
AS. Similar methodology will be utilised to look at the mental health impact of
the condition.
1d: We would like to compare the AS cases to all controls within the UK
Biobank baseline data. We will also carry out a sub-analysis looking at double
the number of age and sex matched controls.